Work 5. Sun Over Snowy Field, Bergby.
Forgive my absence for the past three months, I trust you received my letter of explanation, I imagine that there is but one Dignity Scholarship in Norrtälje?1 I am aware that it may not have articulated the situation clearly as I wrote in great haste and with a hot head but to put it squarely in September I felt that I simply could not paint anymore and I stopped. Only four works in to my DS residency!! I occupied myself with other work, the loose ends of the TAS project, an archive of my Open Council research project from ten years ago, and I horsed around with some music but before long the winter was upon us and it felt, as it always does over here in November, that the world was closing in. Very little daylight. Dark at three, low cloud cover until then. In previous years I have enjoyed the closeness of it and managed to capture it in an SAS2 work but this year it was hard. It taught me a thing or two about the reserved and somewhat blank nature of the people here (no offence)3. Is it the winters that shape them?
In any case my prolonged absence has been due to the winter, the taking of my children to school in Norrtälje and back every day leaving not much light, and for the past four weeks it has been necessary to visit my mother and father everyday as opposed to the two day schedule we had arranged. By the middle of December the lack of painting was effecting me terribly I must tell you, and now I know for sure that this activity is absolutely key for my well being. It is beyond a cliche but it is true and please do not misunderstand me, I do not refer to creative practice generally but specifically to plein air work. A gripping and mysterious activity which provides first and foremost a feeling of connecting oneself to the immediate environment and this combined with the quiet and solitude that plein air work affords which creates a tonic for the times, at least that is my personal feeling. Not especially original revelations and certainly not a little problematic with respect to established views of radical art but this time I speak only of health, of my mental health. Of course many would benefit from a good walk in the country but painting is so much more. A more apt comparison would be a if one took a good walk to a field somewhere and then stood there for hours without moving and starring at the same spot!(Perhaps only moose hunting compares in this regard). No no, painting is more, and in addition one goes through various states of genuine elation and despair into the bargain and if it goes well then there is hope for the future. Have you read that Knausgaard? This one writes as simply and slowly as can be. His work is said to be an 'auto-fiction'?
Indeed, once one is accustomed to this dose of intense solitude it becomes hard to give it up. A drug and no mistake but the difference between this need and the addiction of the common smackhed4 is that one is not aware of even being drugged. I did not even know what was wrong, what was missing, what the drug was. I had a general need for the work but was not aware just how much its lack would effect me and it seems that the need for intense creative solitude creeps up and bit by bit, invades psychology and marrow and ultimately manifests in a depression. I have been reminded of old Cave, an intelligent minstrel to be sure, who said that if he does not do his creative work then his self esteem disappears and he becomes a good for nothing,5 well that is it for me too and quite before anything else regarding art, meaning and money I might add.
Suffice to say the lack of painting over the past three months combined with the natural stresses of Christmas has brought things to a head somewhat but luckily for me the new year has started with a blessing that just might help us back onto the saddle. A buggernaught6 of a storm has brought down hundreds of trees creating chaos, a quite changed landscape and I was not a bit surprised when the lights went out...an almost audible hum descended for a second - I felt my shoulders relax. A power cut! An equaliser and no mistake. Of course if the children were home then it would be different but as they are still swanning around Dalston7 with their mother it was just me and no distractions. It was out for two days and one night8 and I did indeed relax deeply owing I fancy to the instant reduction of time sucking options thus creating a perfect guilt free excuse for not doing whatever tasks one must tackle to keep house (oh how the Swedes LOVE to keep house). One is left alone. I was already alone but the feeling of disconnection increased the sensation. Do not misunderstand me, distractions are largely of my own making and I like many others have great difficulty tearing myself away from the Netflix service not to mention the occasional illegal streaming of a prize fight but it was decisive for me, this power cut. It was sink or swim. I could have immediately taken an automobile to Norrtälje where the power was on but I had been longing for time on my own to work and as I sat in the darkness it seemed very much like a challenge: "here you go if you want it enough." Well, I have always been one to take up the gauntlet as far as my own business is concerned and when this feeling of challenge sank in I jumped up, set my phone to torch and headed straight out to the studio to see if I had any canvas left.
I spent the evening stretching a size 15 by candlelight and re reading the Ingo F. Walther essay on the orchards9 and the next morning I took a study of the sun breaking through the clouds over the main field opposite the house. Simple as that, something's come back. A rot stopper of a canvas! I now feel ready to resume my Dignity Scholarship although I must warn you my appetite for your banquet of political themes has shrunk somewhat. At the moment it seems hard enough just to get by, but it will come.10 I learned over the summer during my failed attempts at commercial success11 that when painting without the political dimension something is indeed missing. Ill leave it at that.
I wish you all a happy and dignified new year!
John
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1. We received a personal letter from John detailing various life problems that were preventing him from working.
2. Stockholm Art Service. See work 2, note 5. A request for more information has been sent to John regarding his SAS work.
3. There is of course no offence taken.
4. Smack head. British slang word to describe a person addicted to heroin: 'Sherlock Holmes was a smacked".
5. See 20 000 Days on Earth.
6. We can find no trace of the word 'buggernaught' but we believe it derives from the word 'juggernaut' to describe something extreme.
7. Small province in London.
8. Many homes were without power for ten days.
9. Refers to Van Gogh's series of blossoming fruit tress painted in Arles in 1988.
10. We reassured John that there was no hurry to tackle the 5 themes and indeed it is our wish to precisely provide a context where it is possible to gently steer ones work towards the political dimension at ones own pace and free from the burden of expectation and achievement. We imagine this broadly as 'sheltering'.
11. John's exhibition schedule included: Folkets Hus Norrtälje, Lions Club Vårsalongen, Restaurang kärleksudden, Hamngalleriet, Grisslehamn, Kröns Trädgård, Atmajala Café, Bergby Konst Center, Galleri Svea, Stockholm.